Five Years of BetterZip

Robert, 2011-05-04 12:23:34 +0200

Five years ago today I released BetterZip 1.0. The first release note is still online. Looking back at that meager first version is a bit embarassing, but I guess that every evolving product sends the same shivers down their creators spines in retrospect. It could only open and create zip files and a few tar files. No options, no previews, no rar, no 7-zip. Since then BetterZip became one of the most powerful archivers for the Mac and yet it remained light-weight and easy to use.

To celebrate this anniversary, BetterZip is 50% off for the next five days, until Monday, May 9th. That means you can get it for US$9.99 in my web store and in the Mac App Store.

I will also let you in on a little secret today: BetterZip 2.0 is right around the corner and will be available soon. There are many enhancements that will make the current version look rather dated. Which, I admit, it is. The first thing that you will notice is, of course, the new user interface. The current version of BetterZip uses drawers for its filebrowser and the preview. If you look at other applications in the Mac universe, drawers aren’t used anymore. BetterZip 2 does away with them as well:

Another cool feature is Quick Look inside archives. It duplicates the functionality of the preview a little bit, but I find myself using both features in my day-to-day archive handling quite regularly. Hitting the space bar is deeply imprinted in my muscle memory.

There is also a new queueing mechanism for batch extracting and compressing archives from the Finder in an ordered, civilized way.

A great number of users asked for a way to reuse passwords, so I built a password manager for BetterZip that no other archiver in the world has. Well maybe there is one, but it was hiding under a rock in Greenland. Although in Greenland it need not even hide under a rock. With the lowest population density in the world, you need to search 40 square kilometres to find one person. And archivers are much smaller than persons… But I digress, where was I?

There are two more big and many smaller changes, but for these to be revealed you will have to wait a little longer. By the way, I am looking for beta testers. If you are eager to put the new version through its paces and give me feedback on it, please send me an email. The feedback part in the deal here is really important. If you find a bug and don’t report it, I’ll name it after you. ;)

My upgrade policy has always been like this: When you buy BetterZip you get all upgrades (including major versions) within a year for free. That’s a pretty long period compared to the grace period most other developers give their customers. Now, I released the last update more than a year ago and I want to give all users who purchased on or after September 1st 2009 free access to version 2. So, this is how it’s going to be. All other registered users can get the new version for a 10$ upgrade fee.

I am already looking forward to see what BetterZip 6.2, aged 10, will look like. You too can influence this, just send me an email!